Category Archives: SharePoint

***Update October 2014: Microsoft has put greater emphasis on Power BI and SharePoint online in the past year, and the future of on-premises SharePoint SSRS is uncertain. Microsoft may instead find a way to connect Power BI to native mode SSRS. At this time, I’d caution teams with an eye to future Microsoft BI against undertaking a migration from native mode to on-premises SharePoint online. This is just my opinion, not the opinion of Microsoft or my employer, but a project of this magnitude must be very carefully planned and risks weighed against the benefits.***

Huzzah, the reports are in SharePoint! Time to take a bow and exit stage left, right?

Not so fast! Have you tested them properly? Are your subscriptions configured in their new home? And what about the users – how do you get them rolling with SSRS in SharePoint? Read on to find out!

By this point in the process, you should have a sense from Part 2 of what your native mode instance has in terms of reports, subscriptions, and data sources. Now it’s time to get your hands dirty and configure some servers! I’ll point you to some good references to get you started, then review what we learned about configuring a reports library that you won’t find on TechNet.

Once you’ve made the decision to migrate from native mode to integrated mode, you need ways to assess what you’re up against. You need to know the current state of your native mode instance, and what that means for your migration, mainly:

***Update October 2014: Microsoft has put greater emphasis on Power BI and SharePoint online in the past year, and the future of on-premises SharePoint SSRS is uncertain. Microsoft may instead find a way to connect Power BI to native mode SSRS. At this time, I’d caution teams with an eye to future Microsoft BI against undertaking a migration from native mode to on-premises SharePoint online. This is just my opinion, not the opinion of Microsoft or my employer, but a project of this magnitude must be very carefully planned and risks weighed against the benefits.***

As someone who has worked with SQL Server Reporting Services for a number of years, the bulk of my experience is with “native mode” installations. Reports are accessed via Report Manager or custom developed .NET UI’s, and SSRS is a free-standing entity administered by someone in a DBA and/or BI role. However, if you wish to get access to the newest and best BI goodies from Microsoft, SSRS running in SharePoint Integrated mode is the direction you must go. The goal of this blog series is to share the lessons and techniques I’ve learned over the past months of migrating reports from a native mode to an integrated mode environment.